Fruit

Peaches

We planted apple, pear, peach, cherry, and apricot trees the year we moved to Antiquity Oaks. After about three years, we began harvesting fruit, and the next winter, the goats escaped from their pasture repeatedly and stripped off the bark from many of the trees and killed them. So, we started over again with more peach, pear, and apple trees, and we added plums.

Pear tree blossoms

The really funny thing was that we also planted raspberries, and through no fault of the goats, the bushes died. A few years later, Mike was walking in the woods one day and found black raspberry bushes growing wild. We also found blackberries, gooseberries, and mulberries.

Throughout the summer we eat mulberry muffins, raspberry crisp, and a variety of other fruit desserts. We also make jams and freeze berries so that we can enjoy that delicious, natural sweetness during the winter. The granny smith apple tree amazingly survived the goats’ escapades, so we enjoy apple crisp in the fall and sometimes make apple butter. Now that the other trees are producing, we also make spiced pear butter. The wonderful thing about pears and granny smith apples is that they are excellent keepers, so we store them in the refrigerator and can eat them for several months into the winter.